Science Summit at United Nations General Assembly (UNGA78)

The Climate Justice Working Group at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society invites a public conversation on the environmental impacts of the physical infrastructure of our digital world. We will explore questions of data science, accountability, colonialism, and the tensions between the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), access to information as a precursor to development, and the impacts of data centers globally. 
The power of data infrastructure lies in its potential to improve development outcomes on a basis of fostering human rights, social inclusion, and poverty eradication. It supports citizen engagement and knowledge aggregation. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies that are dependent on vasts amounts of data are often heralded as tools for addressing the climate crisis. However, the physical infrastructure underlying our digital activity has significant environmental and human costs. 
Narratives centering the cloud obfuscate the physical reality of this technology which is dependent on the presence of data centers and other forms of resource-intensive infrastructure which often extend across geographies. As annual data volumes continue to explode—surpassing 120 zettabytes or 120 trillion gigabytes this year alone—its creation, transmission and storage result in significant land, energy and water use.
Currently, there is a global digital rights movement that seeks to address the climate, ecological, and human impacts of data infrastructure—from South Africa to the Arctic, from Brazil to Malaysia. As environmental and technology justice efforts merge globally, the need for alliance building is increasing—for knowledge sharing, organizational collaboration, and mitigating duplicative efforts. This panel will highlight the emerging transnational solidarity on data infrastructure, accountability, and environmental justice.
This session will bring together a group of scientists, ecologists and activists to explore how climate and technology justice efforts are intersecting in different parts of the world to address the impacts of the physical infrastructure of our digital world.